10.2.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
I would be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated September October
twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a
reading service intended for people who are blind or have
other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
Please join me now for the first article, which is

(00:23):
part two of the underappreciated true story of the brash
Prussian military officer who whipped the Patriots into shape at
Valley Forged by Richard Bell. The first part of our
story delved into the pivotal role played by Friedrich von
Twiben during the American Revolutionary War. It began by setting

(00:46):
the scene at Valley Forge in the winter of seventeen
seventy seven, where the Continental Army, led by George Washington,
was in dire straits. The soldiers were poorly equipped, suffering
from disease, and demoralized after a series of defeats. The
arrival of von Steuben, a seasoned Prussian military officer, marked

(01:09):
a turning point. Despite initial skepticism about his credentials, Von
Steuben's rigorous training regimen and organizational skills transformed the ragtag
group of soldiers into a disciplined and effective fighting force.
His methods, which included standardized drills and strict discipline, were

(01:30):
instrumental in preparing the Continental Army for future battles. The
first part also explored von Steuben's background and the challenges
he faced before arriving in America. Born into Prussian nobility,
von Steuben had a distinguished military career in Europe, but
was forced to leave the Prussian Army under mysterious circumstances.

(01:56):
After a period of drifting and seeking employment. Was eventually
recruited by American envoys in Paris, who exaggerated his credentials
to secure his services. Despite these embellishments, von Steuben's impact
at Valley Forge was undeniable. His ability to instill discipline

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and improve the soldier's morale was crucial in turning the
tide of the war. Although von Steuben's contributions have often
been overshadowed by other figures of the American Revolution, his
legacy as a key architect of the Continental Army's success
remains significant. Here now is part two. As Alexander Escammel,

(02:40):
a New Hampshire officer, wrote in a letter to the
Board of War Discipline, flourishes and daily improves under the
indefatigable efforts of Baron Steuben, who is much esteemed by
all of us. At the end of April, Washington made
Sduiben his permanent Inspector General. The designation came with an

(03:00):
official rank major general, and finally a substantial salary too.
On May fifth, the camp received the momentous news that
the baron's benefactors in France had finally persuaded King Louis
to join the war on the patriots side. In celebration,
Washington ordered a grand review of the troops. Steuben leaped

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at the chance to show him what the men could do.
He choreographed their maneuvers down to the last theatrical detail.
After a cannon fired a thirteen gun salute in honor
of the thirteen rebel colonies, Steuben marched the entire infantry force,
passed their commander in chief to the sound of fife

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and drum. Their uniforms were mismatched and haphazard, but their
movements were ordered and regimented. They formed a long battle line,
two ranks deep. Once in position, two men on the
far right flank raised their muskets and fire in the air.
Then the two men to their left did the same,

(04:04):
and onward down the line. It was an elaborate display
that in French military tradition is called a feu de
jois a fire of joy. When the muskets fell, silent
onlookers applauded as the troops shouted long Live the King
of France and saluted Washington as he rode along the line.

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Writing to his father the next day, Lieutenant Colonel John
Laurens was giddy the order with which the whole was conducted.
He wrote, the beautiful effect of the running fire, which
was executed to perfection. The martial appearance of the troops
all gave sensible pleasure to every one present. The plan,

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as formed by Baron von Steuben, succeeded in every particular.
Triumph beamed in every countenance. The training continued for the
rest of May. Strouben instructed the soldiers how to march
at quicki step one hundred and twenty paces per minute,
how to charge more effectively with their bayonets, how to

(05:06):
rapidly reload their single shot muskets, and how to cover
retreats with volleys of fire. The training remained basic, but
it was highly effective. In a matter of weeks, he
transformed a collection of minimally trained, discreet detachments into a
disciplined national army that might compete as equals with the British.

(05:29):
If some of his credentials were fraudulent, the Baron was
hardly a phony. The new pact with France would prove
to be decisive. After word of the alliance reached Philadelphia,
the British abandoned the city to rush to New York
to defend their coastal headquarters from an anticipated French naval attack.

(05:51):
In pursuit of the Red Coats, the Continental Army marched
out of Valley Forge on June nineteenth. The soldiers left
behind them a fouled and treeless landscape pock marked by
rows of fetid huts and by the refuse of a
community that had by then swollen to nearly twenty thousand people.

(06:11):
But in the context of this ongoing war, it was
what they took with them that mattered most. Many commentators
have claimed that Steuben's careful drilling made the difference when
the Continentals caught up with the Red Coats and engaged
them at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey on
June twenty eighth. That is correct, though perhaps not in

(06:34):
the way one might expect. In truth, the Battle of
Monmouth was an indecisive draw. The fighting itself was messy, confusing,
and improvisational. Still, the Continental soldiers stood their ground as
the British advanced, held their fire until the most effective moment,

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and mounted a counter attack that drove the enemy from
the field. Monmouth turned out to be the last big
battle in the Northern theater. Once the French entered the war,
the fighting shifted largely to the coastal south, which meant
that Continental soldiers north of the Mason Dixon line found
few occasions to deploy the combat skills they learned at

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Valley Forge. Yet, soldiering is also about what happens between battles,
and in that respect, Valley Forge was a watershed. The
proof of that came at the Northern Army's next major
winter encampment at Morristown, New Jersey. Morristown was the coldest
and bleakest encampment of the war, and the greatest threat

(07:39):
to the army's survival. About a third of the infantry died, deserted,
or had to be discharged, but the rest managed to
grit it out. Steuben's drills at Valley Forge had instilled
enough pride and prowess to give them a fighting chance
to see this war to its end. Shtouben X two

(08:00):
had more to give to the patriot cause. In the
fall of seventeen seventy eight, he and four aides sat
down to codify his Valley Forged training into a huge
drill manual, combining classic Prussian protocols with emerging French military
practice that he adapted for American conditions. He wrote about

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speedy maneuvers, effective firepower tactics, infantry formation, record keeping, and
how to conduct a court martial. Having lived at Valley Forge,
he had a lot to say about camp organization, hygiene
and sanitation, where livestock should be slaughtered, where soldiers should

(08:41):
pitch tents, build huts, and dig latrines. He devoted the
last third of his little book to the duties of officers.
He argued that love, not fear, was the secret to
successful leadership. The ideal officer was stern, yet fair and compassionate.
The best officers, Shouyben explained, are those who attend to

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the sick with kindness and humanity, who know their men
by name and by character, and who share in their hardships.
Once Washington approved the text, Congress sent it to be
printed between blue covers under the title Regulations the Order
and Discipline of the Troops of the United States. The

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Baron's Little Blue Book gave the Continental Army its first
standardized military code, and it would remain the U. S.
Army's official source of training procedures for the next thirty years. Meanwhile,
Shuben kept working to supply needed clothes, wagons, and munitions
to Major General Greene and the Southern Department throughout seventeen

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eighty and seventeen eighty one. In the summer of seventeen
eighty two, the Baron returned to the parade ground, this
time at Newburgh, New York, to lead the Continental Army
in a second round of large scale maneuvers to prepare
for a possible attack on British occupied New York City.

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Though this second wave of training has received little scholarly attention,
evidence suggests that Stuben drilled the men into the best
shape of their lives. He even staged a mock amphibious
landing along the banks of the Hudson River that August,
a sort of mini d Day. When the British instead

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evacuated New York in November seventeen eighty three, Washington rode
peacefully into the city with Steuben at his side. Then,
once the ink on the Treaty of Paris was finally dry,
the Continental Army began to disband, and the Baron became
a reluctant civilian. In one of Washington's last letters before

(10:52):
resigning his own commission, the General congratulated Steuben for your
great zeal, attention, and ability and performing the duties of
your office. Washington expressed his sense of the obligations that
the American public is under to you for your faithful
and meritorious services. Yet, if America owed this Prussian drill master,

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its leaders were not ready to cough up. Rampant inflation
had decimated Stuben's pay, and Congress made no move to
make amends. In New York, where Stuben set up home
after the war, he spent lavishly piling up unpaid bills.
Had he shown any interest in marriage, he likely would

(11:38):
have proved too debt ridden to attract a wife. Instead,
he remained a lifelong bachelor. If Stuiben ever had a
romantic relationship with the woman, it is not recorded. Many
scholars believe that he was gay, though there remained more
questions than answers about the baron's sexuality and about what

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purpose it serves to pry further Shtouben remained a well
known public figure for the rest of his life. On
July fourth, seventeen eighty six, at the age of fifty five,
the baron became a naturalized citizen of the newly created
United States, and a ceremony in New York that year,

(12:21):
the State of New York granted the baron a sixteen
thousand acre piece of land seized from British Allied Wadensawny
or Iroquois, as a token of gratitude for his work
at Valley Forge. He made grand plans to develop it
equipped with a luxurious manor house, but those plans fizzled
for lack of funds. Instead, he built a cramped log

(12:45):
hut on the fringes of that undeveloped wilderness, where he
died on November twenty eighth, seventeen ninety four. According to
some reports, he had spent his final days playing chess
and reading Don Quixote. He was buried on the property
in an unmarked grave, then disinterred and reburied a decade

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later in the nearby grove of trees after a developer
tried to build a post road over the first spot.
To day, a massive monument marks his final resting place,
along with an impressive bronze plaque. Across the United States,
there are a dozen or so towns and counties named
after Friedrivingteuben. There are several statues, too, One of them

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looks out over the grand parade at Valley Forge. Fact
for Suspicion, Separating Myths from Truth at Valley Forge. First,
the notorious winter at Valley Forge was not as harsh
as commonly believed. Second, there were just two short lived
periods of severe cold, and it rained far more than

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it snowed four times the entire winter. And finally, not
a single soldier froze to death, though disease claimed nearly
two thousand lives. Next, the colorful, scandalous true history of
the machine that created American pop. The jukebox got its

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start earlier than you might think, but it truly became
iconic when rock and roll took over in the nineteen
fifties by Stephen Melendez. In eighteen eighty nine, a San
Francisco tavern called the Palais Royal debuted a hot new attraction,
a modified Edison phonograph that, when a customer inserted a nickel,

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played music from a single wax cylinder. Electrical sound amplification
was still years away, so customers had to insert stethoscope
type tubes into their ears to hear anything, ideally toweling
down the tubes afterward to remove earwax ahead of the
next listener. Despite this un wielde set up, the machine

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reportedly brought in more than one thousand dollars some thirty
four thousand dollars to day in less than six months,
and coin operated music machines soon proliferated in bars, at
drug stores, and even in new listening parlors across the country. Alas,
poor sound quality meant selections couldn't be soft or subtle,

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so popular offerings included such ear splitting numbers as John
Philip Sousa Marches and the novelty whistler John Yorick Attlee
performing popular ditties of the day. By the early nineteen hundreds,
the machines struggled to compete against player pianos and other
automated instruments that could entertain whole venues with higher quality

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audio and without requiring patrons to stick foreign objects into
their delicate ear canals. But record players continued to improve
in quality and volume and paid to play. Phonographs made
a huge comeback in the nineteen twenties, paving the way
for the juke box era. In nineteen twenty seven, the

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Automatic Musical Instrument Company unveiled the first amplified multi record
coin phonograph juke boxes. They took on this nickname in
the nineteen thirties in reference to African American juke joints
of the South, introduced the world to music on demand
for far less than buying a record, and on better

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equipment than people had at home. The boxes also reshaped
the recording industry, as labels began releasing music specifically designed
for post prohibition bar rooms and cafes. Danceable big band
numbers and tunes like the beer Barrel PoCA were early hits,
and the irrepressible popularity of juke boxes soon rocketed artists

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like swing and presario Glenn Miller to national fans, creating
an audience for loud, catchy, rollicking tunes often played on
newly electrified instruments, shaping what would become country, R and
B and rock and roll. Jukebox operators came to account
for a majority of record sales as they frequently changed

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out selections to keep customers dropping nickels. Using meters within
the machines, operators could track which tunes were most popular
at which locations, and they programmed boxes accordingly, offering a
mix of national hits and more regionally specific selections. The
latter included many tunes by black and working class musicians

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in folk genres such as country and blues that tended
to get scant airplay on the radio of the day,
but soon found appreciative listeners on jukeboxes. By the early
nineteen forties, about five hundred thousand jukeboxes dotted the country,
sometimes inspiring too much of a ruckus. Newspapers frequently reported

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on bar fights over music selections and complaints about noise.
Snootier critics, meanwhile, voiced more petulant grievances. The contrivance is
everywhere and is always booming its inanities. One Los Angeles
Times writer lamented in nineteen forty one, But juke boxes

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had a chance to provide their patriotic bonafides during World
War II, when they provided vital entertainment on military bases
and at troops canteens, sometimes on machines donated by public
spirited American operators. Not a single nickel required. Not even
the cacophony of war can dull the magic power of

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Wurlitzer automatic phonograph music, boasted a nineteen forty four ad.
At the same time, a number of juke box manufacturers,
including war Horlitzer, retooled factories for weapons production. After the war,
Stylish and stream blind juke box cabinets at diners let

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teenagers listen to rock and roll at volumes generally impossible
or at least inadvisable to achieve at home. Juke Boxes
became indelibly associated with nineteen fifty's youth culture, the songs
selected as easily as ordering a diner burger or milkshake.
Jukebox operators now furnished teenage canteens modeled after the military

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rest spots where the boxes had helped entertain the youth
of the previous decade. The format of hit after hit
music cues also helped inspire teen friendly Top forty radio,
replacing older formats that defaulted to playing several songs in
a row by a single artist. Over the next couple

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of decades, juke boxes would see their numbers dwindle as
fans turned to other sources of entertainment, including increasingly high
fidelity home stereos, television and the transistor radio. Where Top
forty countdowns now introduced listeners to hits. Sound of juke
box is fading melody, reported one Associated Press headline in

(20:19):
nineteen eighty two, estimating juke box numbers in the United
States had fallen by more than half since the nineteen fifties,
while video games became the main draw in coin operated entertainment.
Yet decades later, juke boxes, many now digital, continued to
ring out across the US, and the idea that public

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establishments should offer a curated selection of recorded music, whether
individual patrons like it or not, has become nearly ubiquitous.
Where living and listening and a world These machines created
and accompanying this article, making a racket. While America thronged
to the juke box, mobsters often controlled the action by

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Teddy Brokaw. Though the Mob had been involved with music
since at least the start of the jazz age, the jukebox,
with its all cash business model and fungible record keeping,
showed clear potential for tax evasion and money laundering operations
and quickly caught the attention of organized crime. By the

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nineteen forties, mafiosi, foremost among them Meyer Lanski, had pioneered
the typical racket buy up all the juke boxes in
an area and leased them to businesses in exchange for
fifty percent or more of the take. But the scheme's
true brilliance was its scope. The Mob owned not only

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the juke boxes, but also often the record companies supplying
the disks, and the contracts of the artists cutting the records.
It was a masterpiece of vertical integration, and when it worked, gangbusters.
By the mid nineteen fifties, one enterprising gangster Chicago Outfit
member Jake Greasy thumb Guzik, controlled one hundred thousand of

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America's half million juke boxes and was raking in several
million dollars a year With made men at the helm.
The jukebox industry relied on hits of both kinds. Mobsters
could make or break an artist's career, threw their control
over what made it into the machines and thus climbed

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the charts and beatings, bombings, and even murders were just
one of the liabilities of the business. As the Wurlitzer
sales executive testified to a Senate investigative committee in nineteen
fifty nine, jukebox owners who didn't play nice risked seeing
their machines destroyed, while rival jukebox distributors who refused to

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cut the mob in on their operations were whacked on
more than one occasion. The jukebox may be a relic
of a bygone era, but the mob's influence in jukeboxes remains.
As recently as twenty eighteen. A reputed mobster was gunned
down on orders from his own son, then seeking to

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take over his father's New York racket. The victim's funeral
procession was led by a car carrying what else a
juke box made of flowers. Next, how a deaf quarterback
changed sports forever by inventing the huddle. Paul Hubbard called

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for the football team at Galadet University to circle around
him back in eighteen ninety four by Scott Nover. During
a tight game in the fall of eighteen ninety four,
Paul Hubbard, quarterback for the Galadet University Bison and known
as the Eel for his canny maneuvers, made a simple

(23:58):
move that changed sports forever. Concerned that his hand signs
were tipping off his plans to the opposing defense, Hubbard
summoned his offense and directed them to form a circle
around him, creating what many consider the first football huddle.
For the Bison, who have been fielding football teams since

(24:19):
the eighteen eighties, sight matters more than sound. Nestled in
northeast Washington, d C. Galliadet is the most famous and
prestigious deaf university in the world. It has been granting
degrees since eighteen sixty four. The Galliadet student newspaper, The
Buff and Blue, honoured Hubbard in nineteen forty one as

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the Daddy of huddle, as did daily newspapers in Kansas,
where he coached at the Kansas School for the Deaf,
and Washington. When Hubbard died in nineteen forty six. As
with any world shifting innovation, competing claims emerge over the decades.
Herb mc cracken, the University of Pittsburgh player and college coach,

(25:05):
claimed that he'd invented the huddle in nineteen twenty four,
and some quarters credit University of Illinois football coach Robert Subkey,
also known for inventing the on side kick, the flea flicker,
and the screen pass. Still, the Gaaladet origin story pre
dates these accounts by decades and has a persuasive foundation.

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Deaf players needed to hide their visual communication from opponents
even more than hearing teams. From Galadet's Washington campus, the
huddles spread fast across American football. By the nineteen twenties,
the formation had become common enough at college games that
it even drew complaints from some fans, who lamented that

(25:51):
it slowed play. But there was no denying the huddle,
which inevitably took over basketball, baseball, and other sports, offering
a universal protection for the devious language of athletic strategy.
Fun fact, who else attended Galadet. Other notable Galadet University

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students and alumni include Academy Award winning actor Troy Kotzer.
Glenn Anderson, the first deaf African American to earn a
doctorate degree, and Wilma Neuhout Drutchen, the first deaf member
of parliament in South Africa. Finally, ask Smithsonian, you've got questions,

(26:34):
We've got experts From Darryl de Laney, Naples, Florida. When
and why did Americans start smiling in photos? The answer
is from Shannon Perrich, Curator of Photographic History, National Museum
of American History. In the early days of photography, when

(26:54):
pictures were expensive and exposures took more than a few seconds,
the results were generally formal and stiff. We see more
smiles with the arrival of cheaper ten types starting in
the late eighteen fifties and early eighteen sixties, when cameras
could leave the studio to capture casual fund at picnics
and fares. However, not all the smiles were authentic. As

(27:17):
early as the eighteen seventies, photographers began using birdies, small
bird shaped toys or whistles that tweeted with the squeeze
of a bulb to draw momentary smiles out of crying children.
After the stock market crashed in nineteen twenty nine, advertising
photos began using more color and smiles to appeal to

(27:38):
consumers in short while, smiles and photographs seemed to indicate
easygoing fun. The history may suggest otherwise. This concludes readings
from the Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your reader has
been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have a
great day.